


Safeguard

by quicksparrows



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8353429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: A plan to kill a man who should be long dead.





	

.

 

 

Angela unlocks a drawer to take out a metal case, her hands stiff. Ana watches with the distinct feeling of looming consequence; the contents of the case will imbue her with new responsibility. 

"I hope you understand how hesitant I am to allow this in the field," Angela says, and she certainly _sounds_ hesitant. "If it were to fall into the wrong hands..."

"I understand that," Ana says. "But we need this failsafe, Angela."

Angela nods. Her pale fingers clutch the case for a moment as if it were her very last keepsake, but Ana doesn't worry about it. Angela treats every one of her medical wonders that way; her wondrous creations, capable of raising the dead, bending the rules of survival, and saving people from gruesome fates. Ana has watched her surpass herself for decades. There is nothing Angela Ziegler won't do to save a life.

But this time, she will have a hand in killing one.

"Let's see it," Ana says.

"Of course," Angela says.

She sets the case on the counter and opens it to reveal two cylindrical darts, but she doesn't offer them yet. They sit in a frame of eggcrate padding, one red and one green. 

"When the time comes to capture Reyes, or..." Angela trails, and then purses her lips. "Or when it is necessary to kill him. When you need to, you have one shot at it, and another to reverse it." 

There will be a need. There is a need now, in fact; that's what they're here for.

"Seems simple enough," Ana says.

"The antidote is simple –– a failsafe, a safeguard should the first strike the wrong person, or if the enemy gets ahold of it," Angela says, gesturing at the green dart. "But if you use the dart as it is intended to be used, you will have no need for the antidote."

Angela picks up the red dart with care.

"This solution will paralyze the nanites keeping his cells together in a matter of minutes. He will become unable to move around like a ghost, or repair or reassemble himself."

She runs a finger over the shell casing of the larger dart. The red liquid flows from end to end as she turns it, glowing faintly through the clear window.

"What will happen to him?" Ana asks. She likes to know. She always likes to know how she can make it peaceful, quick. It helps her best serve the people she has once (if not always) considered dear.

"With the nanites disabled, he will start to decay rapidly," she says, clinically. She looks down at the dart with heavily lidded eyes. "Their mere presence will have poisoned him over the years, but their function of rapidly recycling his cells has protected him from any ill effect. Without them, it's almost like organ toxicity caused by repeated use of antimicrobial drugs, or a kidney failing to filter blood. His body will become its own worst enemy."

She trails off for a moment, watching Ana, looking for some confirmation that she understands. Ana wonders (not for the first time) if Jack and Angela will suffer such fates eventually, too, but she just nods.

"So his organs will fail. His muscle tissue will also begin to collapse in on itself, and his cardiovascular system will overdo itself attempting to produce enough white blood cells to excise the nanites –– a fruitless endeavor to begin with, but a hill the body will die on."

She pauses, and she warns:

"He will die in agony."

"I understand, Angela," Ana says. She reaches out to place a hand on Angela's shoulder. "Thank you; I know it is difficult for you to arrange such a thing on one of your patients."

Angela seems to brighten a touch at that –– bless her for still being so pleased to do the right thing after all these years –– but her smile is tight.

"It's necessary," she says. "To protect our future, I'll do what I must."

She closes her fingers around the darts and then passes them over. Ana does not need to look at them again. She picks up her new sidearm and loads the darts with a practiced efficiency –– red and then green. Stop and then go. On the nose, but fitting. Ana closes the loading hatch and holsters the sidearm. She doesn't like to do this, but Jack isn't in the right place for something like this. Someone needs to protect them from each other.

There's a moment of silence.

"It could be release for him to finally die," Ana says. "He did say he was suffering, when we met in Giza."

Angela turns away to put away the emptied case. 

"Who can say?" she says as she arranges it in a drawer. It fits in alongside more identical cases, and then she closes and locks the drawer again. Angela breathes a deep sigh: "We think we know what is best for others, but in the end, it is their choice."

Ana wonders (not for the first time) what choice any of them have, but she says nothing.

Someday, she's going to have to take the shot.


End file.
